Mediaocean Introduces Buying Upgrade, New CTO

Vedant Sampath, the newly appointed chief technology officer at Mediaocean, the ad transaction processor that was created by the merger of Donovan Data Systems and MediaBank, joins just weeks
before it introduces a major upgrade to its buying system for ad agencies.

The upgrade is significant because it will introduce the company’s so-called “open platform”
operating system designed to allow media companies and third-party vendors, such as ratings and market research companies, to easily interface with the system.

The system is designed to
accommodate all media -- traditional and digital -- with the ability to add new channels seamlessly as they emerge, said Sampath. “It will be all tied together so that agencies can customize and
build applications,” that they believe will give them a competitive advantage, said Sampath, who joined Mediaocean from Operative, where he was also CTO.

Also featured in the
new system will be an automated RFP setup that enables media buyers and sellers to communicate throughout the transaction process, eliminating many manual inputs and faxing back and forth.

For users of past versions of Donovan’s system, the upgrade may seem dramatic. Donovan operated a closed system that was legendary for being difficult to integrate data from outside systems.
That said, John Bauschard, president of Platforms at Mediaocean, notes that integration wasn’t exactly top of mind when Donovan designed its system decades ago. “Everything was fairly
siloed back then,” he said.

While third-party providers may have an easier time integrating their own systems on Mediaocean’s new open platform, they will have to make a case
that Mediaocean agency clients want their products. Otherwise, they may not have access to the platform.

“Everybody wants to be connected in some way,” Bauschard said. But the
company will be making decisions about which third parties have access (and what degree of access) based on client needs and what makes sense from an “efficiency” basis, he said.

Access to the MediaOcean platform should be permitted for the agencies, who are the clients. They can then develop their own value add applications utilizing what DDS / MediaOcean data they need. They can develop by themselves or contract with IT vendors. But MediaOcean should not be barring the door at its whim, they have to lose the old DDS mentality. Sooner or later, monopolies wither if customers are ignored.